Beloved pastry matriarch and national baking supremo Mary Berry is gearing up to swap her apron and eggs for a gas mask and concentrated methylamine this winter, after the BBC commissioned a gritty new primetime cookery spinoff competition to be titled ‘Baking Bad’.

BBC executives have discovered that there is a direct correlation between hemline and the groping machinations of their former employee. In fact, scientists are convinced that the infamous Unwelcome DLT Syndrome is also caused by chest size, gender and being in the vicinity of a hairy octopus.

People in the news should refrain from appearing on television bulletins sitting on horrible sofas, says a social attitudes report.

Dr. Muriel Comfort of the Social Attitudes Foundation, said: ‘Typically, man and wife, or even the extended family, are interviewed in their lounge sitting on their horrible sofa, which makes it difficult for the viewer to concentrate on the interview. Instead, viewers are quite naturally busy denouncing the horrible sofa.’